Anyone experiencing their headlight doors not closing all the way?

 

Umm, a bit more detail than that?

 

Actually it's my friends car.

You turn the light's on ,no problem they both open and are lit.Turn them to off and they both go all the way down but the drivers side comes back up about half way. You can go push it down wirth your hand and it stays down.He did mention he had a kit put in ,a while back, some washer or such. It may have been a recall because he got the kit from GM.The kit was supposed to fix the problem.

 

this happened to me just today. I replaced my motor gear 10 days ago and all was fine. Just today the drivers side light goes up but it winks and when it closes it only closes half way. I just rebuilt the damn thing 10 days ago and put in a new gear. Im waiting for replies to my post

 

Let me know if you hear anything Please.

 

guys read my posts in this thread:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ghlight=washer

check what i've written in there, it will explain what happened and how to solve the problem.

 

What is basically happening is the actuator arm is pushing past the end stop, which is a soft plastic bumper. You can actually watch the arm through its motion.

In my case, this was due to wear of the bumper. In both cases mentioned here, it sounds like the case has loosened enough to allow the arm to slip past the bumper. The main clue is that the headlight can be pushed back down; mine you can't do that without a decent amount of force, to the point of risking bending/breaking something.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

 

I am taking mine apart tuesday/wednesday and will repost when Im done. I seem to recall when I originally put my light motor back in 2 weeks ago, after replacing the gear, I dindt wait long enough for the glue to dry and when I put my headlights on and off it did what its doing now. It winked at me and didnt close right. I am assuming the gear post everyone is talking about doesnt know where to stop as it is loose inside because the housing of the gear motor has popped off or has come loose. I used some bs epoxy from the $1 store . Ill re check it tomorrow or wednesday at the latest and repost. I have some of that liguid steel I will use to keep it in place this time. Ill get back to ya but sounds like this is the problem. Its an easy fix even for someone who isnt mechanically inclined

 

Put some clamps around them, if not they will fall apart again...

 

Well good news to all of you. There may be an easy for for all of you that have blinking headlights! Ok I was about to take the motor apart again to re glue it in the case that the gear rod inside had become loose inside the housing. Someone said to put a washer on the headlight motor gear before resealing it to make it a tight fit so there is no play which made sense.

Luckily I inspected the headlight assembly before I took the whole assembly out of the car again. Good news. There is a rubber off white colored stopper that is located on the headlight motor near the arm. What it does is it actually the resting place for the motor arm to stop on when headlight is closed. I would have taken a pic but my digital cam is being repaired. The arm when the headlight is closed rests on this little $.05 stopper which looks like half the size of a piece of small dentyne gum or chicklet gum. The stopper was wore out from the arm hitting it over the past 7 years and eventually instead of the arm stopping on it, it would basically pass through it and make the headlights not close properly or close and then reopen to half way up as mine was doing.

If you look on the headlight assembly there are 3 of these on the whole entire headlight assembly. There are 2 on top of the headlight back where the headlight is. I took the one from the headlight and put it on to the one where the worn out one was on my motor arm and it is perfect no problems. If anyone needs anymore info email me

 

Here is the TSB:

Document ID# 728272
2000 Chevrolet/Geo Corvette

Tech - Left Headlamp Door Does Not Stay Closed #00-08-42-002 - (May 30, 2000)
Left Headlamp Door Does Not Stay Closed (Shim Headlamp Door Motor/Actuator and Replace Insulators)
2000 Chevrolet Corvette

Condition
Some customers may comment that the left front headlamp door does not remain closed after the headlamps are turned off. Others may comment that the left headlamp door closes when the headlamps are turned off, but then reopens. In either case, the right headlamp door operates properly.

Correction
Important
The following information applies to the left front headlamp door motor/actuator only. It does not apply to and should not be performed on the right front headlamp door motor/actuator.



Install one washer (2) between the left headlamp door motor/actuator (1) and the mounting bracket (3) at each of the three attaching bolt locations. Also replace the insulator (4) on each of the two mounting bracket travel stop tabs (5) as shown. For information on headlamp motor/actuator removal, see the Headlamp Motor/Actuator Replacement procedure in the Lighting sub-section of Body & Accessories in the appropriate Service Manual.

Parts Information
Part Number Description Qty Per Vehicle
11505463 Washer 3
16524060 Insulator 2
Parts are expected to be available from GMSPO, 6/15/00.

Warranty Information
For vehicles repaired under warranty, use:
Labor Operation Description Labor Time
N3231 Actuator Assembly, Left Front Headlamp - Replace
Note: Also Referred to as "Motor Assembly" 0.5 hr

 

And here's the pic to go with the TSB

 

Thanks DeeGee, I don't do pictures well. My ESips is hard for me to use. I used your link, hope you don't mind?

 

Yes!
Do not do anything until you've done the simple task of reversing or swapping the white nylon tabs. My headlight winked at me about 6 times before it would stop in the open position. I found that one of those nylon tabs was dented/worn and replaced it with one from the other headlight. The problem started coming back every 6 months or so and I just kept flipping the tabs over until I had to buy some. Then I finally just took some big pliers and bent the metal tab up higher so the nylon tab wasn't even necessary and now I haven't had a problem with it in years.

 

I agree. Same thing happend to me today as I posted and its workign fine without taking it back out or going to dealer. Check the yellowish stopper tabs first FIxed it in 2.5 minutes